The memory turn in the humanities has been crucial for understanding the rhetorical work memorials and museums perform for the state. However, the postmodern development of the hybrid memorial museum remains underexamined as a unique rhetorical artifact. In this article, I combine postmodern museology with material rhetoric and multimodal argumentation to critique the particular trend of repurposing historical buildings from the commemorated moment in question into the physical memorial museum itself. Building from previous literature exploring juxtaposition as argument, I contend that repurposing ruins into memorial museums uses authenticity to create a kisceral rhetorical juxtaposition between the ruin’s former and current life as an argumentative strategy. Such work thus makes the repurposed memorial museum both a container and rhetorical object of memory. To exemplify this, I perform a rhetorical critique in situ of the Memorial Museum of the German Division of Marienborn (Gedenkstätte Deutsche Teilung Marienborn [GDTM]): a former East German border crossing. I show how GDTM leverages its architectural authenticity through this Janus-faced juxtaposition to curate cultural memory discourses regarding German unification. In conclusion, I posit how further post-Soviet infrastructures and other repurposed memorial museums offer a critical rhetoric that in our political climes is never more needed.

人文学科的记忆转向对于理解纪念馆和博物馆为国家进行的修辞工作至关重要。然而，混合纪念博物馆的后现代发展作为一种独特的修辞艺术品，仍然未被充分检验。在这篇文章中，我将后现代博物馆学与物质修辞和多模态论证结合起来，批判了将历史建筑从纪念时刻重新用于实体纪念博物馆本身的特殊趋势。从以前探索并列作为论点的文献出发，我认为将废墟重新用于纪念博物馆是利用真实性在废墟的前世和现在的生活之间创造一种奇思妙想的修辞并列作为一种争论策略。因此，这样的工作使重新利用的纪念博物馆成为记忆的容器和修辞对象。为了举例说明这一点，我在马里恩伯恩德国分部纪念博物馆的现场进行了修辞批评（Gedenkstätte Deutsche Teilung Marienborn [GDTM]）：前东德过境点。我展示了 GDTM 如何利用其建筑的真实性，通过这种面向 Janus 的并置来策划有关德国统一的文化记忆话语。最后，我假设进一步的后苏联基础设施和其他重新利用的纪念博物馆提供了一种批判性言论，在我们的政治环境中从未如此需要。